Workshop on Mitis Iudex Dominus Iesus

Last evening nearly two hundred folks joined our seminarians in a

workshop on the Holy Father’s motu proprio Mitis Iudex Dominus Iesus at Our Lady of the Presentation Lecture Hall. Our own distinguished canonists, Father Jim Conn and Father Mark O’Connell lead us through the document and summarized its still emerging implications.

How appropriate that we held this workshop on the first day of the Synod on the Family, at which Cardinal André Vingt-Troi addressed the following words to the Holy Father:

"The motu proprio Mitis Iudex Dominus Iesus whereby you reformed the procedures for the canonical process on the sacramental validity of marriages gives a valuable indication of the spirit in which we approach this phase of the work. Without questioning the sacramental tradition of our Church or her doctrine on the indissolubility of marriage, you invite us to share our pastoral experiences and to better implement the paths of mercy by which the Lord invites those who so wish and who are able to enter a process of conversion with a view to (receiving) pardon.”